Congress passes two-month fix for Medicare payments
Your Medicare payments are safe from the 27.4% sustainable growth rate (SGR) cut, but not for long. After nearly a weeklong stalemate, Congress passed a bill Dec. 22 to keep the SGR cut at bay, extend payroll tax breaks and continue unemployment benefits through February.
This means you and your peers will see a 0% update on your Medicare payments until March 1 unless Congress votes to extend the “doc fix.” The two-month stay passed through Congress largely with the hope legislators reconvene after the holiday recess and draft a one-year fix to physician payments by March 1. The $33 billion temporary fix, signed into law by President Barack Obama Dec. 23, will have a conversion factor of $34.0376 until Feb. 29.
“With this brief reprieve from the massive 27 percent cut to Medicare payments, Congress now has to enact a real and fiscally responsible solution to this sorry cycle of scheduled cuts and short-term patches that compromises access to care for patients and drives up costs for taxpayers,” said AMA president Peter Carmel, M.D. in a news release.
References:
- Part B News — 12/26/2011
- CMS News release — 12/26/2011
We have coding tools available for your further information, as well as your reading pleasure.
